Month: May 2017

This kid was all smiles in Petrified Forest National Park!

We weren’t able to hit any of the ‘cool’ spots in New Mexico like Roswell or Carlsbad Caverns. It’s a big state and we plan to go back next year.  We were on a timeline and our mission was clear: get to Albuquerque in time for Kevin’s work conference.  When you have two ‘littles’ in tow you really can’t deviate from the plan. Eliza was getting increasingly anxious and fidgety during day-time car rides too…

Scenes of beautiful petrified logs

We left Moab, UT with time to explore Petrified Forest National Park and  some of the city of Albuquerque before the conference started.  We did drive a portion of Route 66 which was cool.

Petrified Forest National Park was a small-ish park. We camped right on the edge of the park at a gift shop that was also a campground. We explored the park for an afternoon and then drove towards New Mexico that evening. We went on several short hikes and it was neat to see the beauty of the petrified wood.

We stayed at “Enchanted Trails RV Park” right on Route 66 in Albuquerque. They had several vintage campers that you could rent out to say in for the night!

Some of the fun things we did while in Albuquerque that we have photos of: played Nintendo switch, swam at the pool (note Eliza’s size 12 month swim suit that’s just too tight to be pulled up), coloring, and playing house together.

We were much less inspired by Albuquerque. We went on a family bike ride, went out to eat, and took in the view of the Sandia Mountains but never really ‘connected’ with this city. We met up with Kevin’s friend Brandon who was also in town for the same work conference and went out to a yummy restaurant. Once the conference was over we hitched up and hightailed it outta there on the long long road to Maine…

This photo perfectly sums up dining out with children: Child missing from her seat. Water glass full of toys. Bread basket nearly empty (her dinner).

Eloise admiring the petrified wood or having a foot-stomping temper tantrum? You decide… 🙂

Eloise pointing to the patch of cactus she tripped into

A girl walks into a cactus…is not the start of a funny joke. It was a really bad night that Eloise has thankfully fully recovered from. She was walking next door in the dark to say goodnight to her little friend and tripped. Kevin and I spent an hour and a half picking cactus spikes out  of her. Poor baby! My fault for not giving her a flashlight. 🙁

Anyway, cactus aside, we loved our time in Moab, Utah. We stayed about 3 weeks in total. We loved the food. We loved the local vibe. We loved the hiking and biking and if you ever go there you have to try the Quesadilla Mobilla food truck! Yum!

View of Moab from the Sunset Grill Restaurant

It wasn’t all amazing tho: first there was the snow and then there was the wind. We encountered a winter storm on a mountain pass towing our 5th wheel from Bryce to Moab. We saw several tractor trailer trucks off the road and Kevin was ‘white-knuckling it’ driving down the steep, icy mountain pass. Yikes. We were all glad when we had finally arrived in one piece. Secondly, THE WIND is unrelenting in Moab. Of all the nights we stayed in Moab we could only have a fire/be outside in the evening about 5 or 6 nights. (That’s a lot of windy nights!) The wind blew over our hammock/hammock stand, ripped the hinge off our front door, blew away a few toys, and untold amounts of sand blew into our camper during several wind storms. Oye!

Layer of sand and dust on our printer after one windstorm the night before

We boondocked (dry camped) on public BLM land about 12 minutes from downtown Moab and had an amazing view of the La Sal Mountains. Moab is perfect for dry camping as there is free water and dump stations in town. We had long planned to come to Moab and there were several things we wanted to be sure to do. Our first order of business: a new mountain bike for Kevin. After lots of careful research and planning, his dream bike was finally found on pinkbike.com and he had an amazing time breaking it in. He rode over 100 miles of trails including the whole enchilada, mag 7, and slick rock.  I inherited Kevin’s old mountain bike and redecorated it appropriately. We have been able to enjoy several family bike rides since.

View from our camper of the La Sal Mountains

Kevin and his many biking adventures in Moab

Kevin’s old bike covered with stickers and a few other necessary accessories 😉

We had the good fortune of meeting up with numerous other fulltime families  and friends while in Moab which was a great blessing. We love meeting and getting to know other families on the road. First we met with a family traveling the US from Switzerland who happened to park right near us. Then we met up with the Logdson’s from Tennessee. We went out to dinner with them a few times, enjoyed a the Moab Jeep convention, went on a beautiful hike, and had fun playing and hanging out around the fire. We hope they will be able to meet up with us for a tour of Acadia in Maine later this summer!

So much fun with our little friends

Fun times at the giant sand dune right across from the entrance to Arches National Park

Then we met up with a couple from Escapees Chapter 8 who we had met during our two week trip to Mexico this past February. Donna has her hair dyed rainbow colors  and just loves playing with Eloise! Eloise couldn’t wait to try some temporary hair dye with her.

Purple, blue, and red hair!

Playing with our little friend Maya

Next we met with a fulltime family originally from Lithuania who we had met at several rallies in the past. Eloise got to know their daughter quite well over the course a a week while Kevin and Giedrius were able to enjoy numerous mountain bike rides. Together we all enjoyed the town aquatics center and playgrounds, several hikes in Arches National Park, and we also rented a Jeep with them one day. We rode our Jeeps on the 100-mile “White Rim Road” in Caynonlands National Park. It was such an amazingly fun and adventurous way to experience that national park.

The White Rim Road with our Jeep (we rented the blue one)

We have so many beautiful photos of Canyonlands National Park its hard to choose just a few to share!

Finally, we met with our Maine friends Cassie and Ryan who passed through Moab for one night on their month long tour of the US. (Eloise vividly remembers attending their wedding last fall and thus refers to Cassie as a ‘real life princess.’ Cute.)

The princess and her prince went on a few hikes in Arches with us, went to the local brewery, and were the first guests to stay overnight in our home in a long time! We all enjoyed hanging out with them before they headed on down the road to Las Vegas the next morning.

All in all we had a magnificent time in Moab and can’t wait until next time…

Happy baby outside Arches National Park

We pulled into Bryce Canyon, Utah in the early afternoon. We wanted to stay right near the national park and we had a few options lined up but Eloise met a family in Zion who was also headed to Bryce. They were staying at Ruby’s Inn and Campground so we changed our plans to stay with them. The campground had plenty of room because it sits at 8500 ft of elevation (compared to 3000 ft at Zion). Who cares? Well that major change in elevation meant one thing: it’s cold. While it was warm in Zion it was ice cold in Bryce. It was disconnect-your-water-hoses-at-night-because-it-will-freeze-solid cold. Fun. (Truthfully tho it was a welcome change from the brutal heat of Southern Arizona…)

It was nice to need a light jacket for once! haha

We stayed 3 nights and enjoyed the indoor pool there. We played with our friends we met at Zion and enjoyed several hikes around the hoodoos at Bryce.

We took a day trip to the local ski mountain (Brian’s Head Ski Mountain) where Eloise got to try out skiing with Daddy.

They had a nice time skiing and someone enjoyed making snow angels just as much as skiing

We had originally planned to stop at Capitol Reef National Park and Goblin Valley State park later that week but further research informed us of two important details: 1) it was too cold and snowy at Capitol Reef (the Park was largely closed; the roads were still snow covered) and 2) there was no internet/cell service at Capitol Reef or Goblin Valley. So we headed on down the road to sunny Moab instead.

Kevin got a chance to go mountain biking on the Thunder Mountain trail in Bryce